Artificial intelligence is turning out to be a useful tool for doctors who are increasingly using complex algorithms to help them diagnose disease, and even create new drugs. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…
Month: June 2017
A mass bleaching of coral reefs worldwide is finally easing after three years, U.S. scientists announced Monday.
About three-quarters of the world’s delicate coral reefs were damaged or killed by hot water in what scientists say was the largest coral catastrophe.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced a global bleaching event in May 2014. It was worse than previous global bleaching events in 1998 and 2010.
The forecast damage doesn’t look widespread in the Indian Ocean, so the event loses its global scope. Bleaching will still be bad in the Caribbean and Pacific, but it’ll be less severe than recent years, said NOAA coral reef watch coordinator C. Mark Eakin.
Places like Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, northwest Hawaii, Guam and parts of the Caribbean have been hit with back-to-back-to-back destruction, Eakin said.
University of Victoria, British Columbia, coral reef scientist Julia Baum plans to travel to Christmas Island in the Pacific where the coral reefs have looked like ghost towns in recent years.
“This is really good news,” Baum said. “We’ve been totally focused on coming out of the carnage of the 2015-2016 El Nino.”
While conditions are improving, it’s too early to celebrate, said Eakin, adding that the world may be at a new normal where reefs are barely able to survive during good conditions.
Eakin said coral have difficulty surviving water already getting warmer by man-made climate change. Extra heating of the water from a natural El Nino nudges coral conditions over the edge.
About one billion people use coral reefs for fisheries or tourism. Scientists have said that coral reefs are one of the first and most prominent indicators of global warming.
“I don’t see how they can take one more hit at this point,” Baum said. “They need a reprieve.”
…
Long before cats became the darlings of Facebook and YouTube, they spread through the ancient human world.
A DNA study reached back thousands of years to track that conquest and found evidence of two major dispersals from the Middle East, in which people evidently took cats with them. Genetic signatures the felines had on those journeys are still seen in most modern-day breeds.
Researchers analyzed DNA from 209 ancient cats as old as 9,000 years from Europe, Africa and Asia, including some ancient Egyptian cat mummies.
“They are direct witnesses of the situation in the past,” said Eva-Maria Geigl of the Jacques Monod Institute in Paris. She and colleagues also looked at 28 modern feral cats from Bulgaria and east Africa.
It’s the latest glimpse into the complicated story of domesticated cats. They are descendants of wild ancestors that learned to live with people and became relatively tame – though some cat owners would say that nowadays, they don’t always seem enthusiastic about our company.
The domestication process may have begun around 10,000 years ago when people settled in the Fertile Crescent, the arch-shaped region that includes the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and land around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. They stored grain, which drew rodents, which in turn attracted wild cats. Animal remains in trash heaps might have attracted them too. Over time, these wild felines adapted to this man-made environment and got used to hanging around people.
Previous study had found a cat buried alongside a human some 9,500 years ago in Cyprus, an island without any native population of felines. That indicates the cat was brought by boat and it had some special relationship to that person, researchers say.
Cats were clearly tame by about 3,500 years ago in Egypt, where paintings often placed them beneath chairs. That shows by that time, “the cat makes its way to the household,” said Geigl.
But the overall domestication process has been hard for scientists to track, in part because fossils skeletons don’t reveal whether a cat was wild or domesticated.
It’s easier to distinguish dogs, our first domesticated animal, from their wolf ancestors. Dogs evolved from wolves that had begun to associate with people even before farming began, perhaps drawn by the food the humans left behind.
The new study tracked the spread of specific cat DNA markers over long distances through time, a sign that people had taken cats with them. Results were released Monday by the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
The study “strengthens and refines previous work,” said Carlos Driscoll of the Wildlife Institute of India. The extensive sampling of cat DNA going back so far in time is unprecedented, he said.
Researchers also looked for a genetic variant that produces the blotchy coat pattern typical of modern-day domestic cats, rather than the tiger-like stripes seen in their wild cousins. It showed up more often in samples from after the year 1300 than earlier ones, which fits with other evidence that the tabby cat markings became common by the 1700s and that people started breeding cats for their appearance in the 1800s.
That’s late in the domestication of cats, in contrast to horses, which were bred for their appearance early on, Geigl said.
Most of the study focused on the ancient dispersals of cats. In the DNA samples analyzed, one genetic signature found first in the Asian portion of Turkey – and perhaps once carried by some Fertile Crescent cats – showed up more than 6,000 years ago in Bulgaria.
That indicates cats had been taken there by boat with the first farmers colonizing Europe, Geigl said. It also appeared more than 5,000 years ago in Romania, as well as around 3,000 years ago in Greece.
A second genetic signature, first seen in Egypt, had reached Europe between the first and fifth centuries, as shown by a sample from Bulgaria. It was found in a seventh-century sample from a Viking trading port in northern Europe, and an eighth-century sample from Iran.
The dispersal of the cats across the Mediterranean was probably encouraged by their usefulness in controlling rodents and other pests on ships, the researchers said.
…
Killer heat is getting worse, a new study shows.
Deadly heat waves like the one now broiling the American West are bigger killers than previously thought and they are going to grow more frequent, according to a new comprehensive study of fatal heat conditions. Still, those stretches may be less lethal in the future, as people become accustomed to them.
A team of researchers examined 1,949 deadly heat waves from around the world since 1980 to look for trends, define when heat is so severe it kills and forecast the future. They found that nearly one in three people now experience 20 days a year when the heat reaches deadly levels. But the study predicts that up to three in four people worldwide will endure that kind of heat by the end of the century, if global warming continues unabated.
“The United States is going to be an oven,” said Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii, lead author of a study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The study comes as much of the U.S. swelters through extended triple-digit heat. Temperatures hit records of 106, 105 and 103 in Santa Rosa, Livermore and San Jose, California on Sunday, as a heat wave was forecast to continue through midweek. In late May, temperatures in Turbat, Pakistan, climbed to about 128 degrees (53.5 degrees Celsius); if confirmed, that could be among the five hottest temperatures reliably measured on Earth, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of Weather Underground.
Last year 22 countries or territories set or tied records for their hottest temperatures on record, said Masters, who wasn’t part of the study. So far this year, seven have done so.
“This is already bad. We already know it,” Mora said. “The empirical data suggest it’s getting much worse.”
Mora and colleagues created an interactive global map with past heat waves and computer simulations to determine how much more frequent they will become under different carbon dioxide pollution scenarios. The map shows that under the current pollution projections, the entire eastern United States will have a significant number of killer heat days. Even higher numbers are predicted for the Southeast U.S., much of Central and South America, central Africa, India, Pakistan, much of Asia and Australia.
Mora and outside climate scientists said the study and map underestimate past heat waves in many poorer hot areas where record-keeping is weak. It’s more accurate when it comes to richer areas like the United States and Europe.
If pollution continues as it has, Mora said, by the end of the century the southern United States will have entire summers of what he called lethal heat conditions.
A hotter world doesn’t necessarily mean more deaths in all locales, Mora said. That’s because he found over time the same blistering conditions _ heat and humidity _ killed fewer people than in the past, mostly because of air conditioning and governments doing a better job keeping people from dying in the heat. So while heat kills and temperatures are rising, people are adapting, though mostly in countries that can afford it. And those that can’t afford it are likely to get worse heat in the future.
“This work confirms the alarming projections of increasing hot days over coming decades – hot enough to threaten lives on a very large scale,” said Dr. Howard Frumkin, a University of Washington environmental health professor who wasn’t part of the study.
Mora documented more than 100,000 deaths since 1980, but said there are likely far more because of areas that didn’t have good data. Not all of them were caused by man-made climate change.
Just one heat wave – in Europe in 2003 – killed more than 70,000 people.
…
As South Korea’s new leadership works toward easing long strained inter-Korean relations, U.S. experts are eyeing the country’s conciliatory overtures to the Kim Jong Un regime, worried that a possible resumption of the Kaesong Industrial Complex could provoke discord with the Trump administration.
Shortly after South Korean President Moon Jae-in named Cho Myoung-gyun to be his North Korea point man on June 13, Cho, who played a key role in launching the now-stalled economic cooperation project, told reporters, “Operations at the Kaesong Industrial Complex should be restored. I will speak after thoroughly looking into the details.”
That statement caused a flurry of criticism in Washington, with many analysts saying reviving activities at the complex possibly could hurt Washington-Seoul relations and diminish their alliance coordination. Seoul closed the complex in February 2016 as punishment for the regime’s nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.
“Reopening the Kaesong Industrial Complex is very problematic from Washington’s perspective,” Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst who specializes in North Korea, told VOA’s Korean Service.
Launched in 2004 to enhance cooperation between the two Koreas, the jointly run industrial complex in Kaesong, just north of the border, has reportedly provided $100 million a year in wages to 54,000 North Korean workers and contributed almost $2 billion in trade for Pyongyang.
Terry said any conciliatory action that translates into significant financial benefits for Pyongyang contradicts Washington’s North Korea policy, which is focused on thwarting the Kim regime’s nuclear weapons program by severing all possible revenue streams that fund it.
“We don’t know where the money is going,” Terry said. “It could be contributing to North Korea’s WMD (weapons of mass destruction) missile program. There is no evidence that it’s not.”
Thomas Countryman, who served in the Obama administration as assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, said restarting Kaesong’s activities would not only reward Kim for the continued provocations, but also throw cold water on international efforts.
“It would be inconsistent with the [U.N. Security Council] resolutions if not in the letter, then in the spirit,” Countryman said. “There is simply no way that [South Korea] could convince China to have a strict enforcement of the U.N. resolutions, if South Korea is reopening a complex that provides tens of millions of dollars of hard currency every year to the North Korean regime.”
Formerly the Obama White House coordinator for arms control and WMD, Gary Samore of the Belfer Center at Harvard University said Seoul should be more strategic and use Kaesong as a bargaining chip in response to or as part of a deal with Pyongyang to take steps toward limiting and eventually eliminating its nuclear activities.
“It would be a big mistake to resume the Kaesong Industrial Park without getting something in return,” Samore said. “So if Kim Jong Un agrees to some limits on nuclear and missile activity — for example, a freeze on testing — then I think one response that [South Korea] could make would be to resume the Kaesong Industrial Park, with the understanding that the facility would be suspended if Kim Jong Un resumed nuclear and missile testing.”
Negotiations on Pyongyang’s nuclear program have been in limbo for almost a decade, with Washington and Seoul ratcheting up economic pressure and a stubborn Pyongyang persisting with weapons development. But since Moon took office last month, he appears to be easing conditions for talks with the North.
“I make it clear that we will open dialogue without a precondition” should North Korea stop launching missiles and testing nuclear devices, Moon said Thursday at an event marking the 2000 inter-Korean summit.
But when President Donald Trump’s top diplomat Rex Tillerson led a U.N. Security Council special meeting in April, he rejected negotiations with Kim, saying North Korea “must take concrete steps to reduce the threat that its illegal weapons programs pose to the U.S. and our allies before we can even consider talks.” Those steps would be dismantling its nuclear and missile programs.
Moon Chung-in, South Korea’s special presidential advisor for foreign and security affairs, commented at an event in Washington Friday that his president proposed “scaling down” the Washington-Seoul joint military drills if North Korea “suspends its nuclear and missile activities.”
The State Department downplayed the significance of the comments.
“We understand these views are the personal views of Mr. Moon and may not reflect official ROK govern policy,” said Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs spokesperson Alicia Edwards in an email to VOA.
A senior official at the South Korean presidential office said the advisor did not coordinate with the president’s office on the proposal.
This report originated on VOA Korean.
…
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday announced he wants to see up to $1 trillion of tax savings over the next decade by a “sweeping transformation of the federal government’s technology.”
Trump told the American Technology Advisory Council in the White House State Dining Room that “we’re embracing big change, bold thinking and outsider perspectives to transform government and make it the way it should be and at far less cost.”
A slew of high-tech heavyweights, some of whom have criticized President Donald Trump’s policies, huddled at the White House on Monday as the administration kicked off its “technology week.”
The chief executive officers of 18 companies held meetings with White House and other Trump administration officials to generate ideas to attempt to transform and modernize government services.
“In addition to the trillion in cost we can take out, probably we can add another two trillion [dollars] on the numerator in terms of digital business by getting the public and the private sector in full cooperation under your administration,” Bill McDermott, the CEO of enterprise software company SAP, told Trump.
Also speaking to the group, one of the world’s most successful venture capitalists, John Doerr, contended that there is also a “trillion dollars of value locked up in government databases. The Kleiner Perkins chairman told the president that “if you set the data free the entrepreneurs are going to do the rest.”
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, the world’s largest online shopping retailer, recommended government, for its transformation, “use commercial technologies whenever possible” to save taxpayers’ money. He also said it was impossible to overstate that investment is needed in machine learning and artificial intelligence.
The CEO of cloud computing company VMware, Pat Gelsinger, echoed that, saying “we deeply believe that we need to be planting those seed corns for our children and grandchildren.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also agreed, saying increasing competitiveness could be achieved through government spending in research. And the native of India told the president the United States should maintain an “enlightened immigration policy,” noting he was the beneficiary of such a policy.
The corporate leaders at the table with the president on Monday cumulatively represented more than $3.5 trillion in market value, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters.
“Today we’ve assembled a very impressive group of leaders from the private sector and are putting them to work here today to work on some of the country’s biggest challenges that will make a very meaningful difference to a lot of its citizens,” White House senior advisor Jared Kushner said as the White House kicked off the day of meetings.
Kushner, who is President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, says the goal is to “work to modernize the government’s technology infrastructure.”
There is outside skepticism about whether the president’s goal – at least in monetary terms – can be achieved.
“I do not understand how or where that trillion-dollar number comes from,” veteran Silicon Valley engineer Leslie Miley told VOA. “There is no basis for that claim so, as an engineer, I would not believe it until I saw a breakdown.”
The sprawling federal government maintains more than 6,000 data centers, some of the systems stretching back more than a half century.
The Department of Defense is still using floppy disks in some of its computer systems, Kushner noted.
Apple CEO Tim Cook told Trump that computer coding should be a required subject in every public school and that “the U.S. should have the most modern government in the world, and today it doesn’t.”
“Tim Cook is right, we should,” Miley, who has worked at Apple, Google, Slack and Twitter, told VOA. “However, with key leadership positions in the government unfilled, it’s going to be difficult getting a strategy in place and executed.”
Monday’s White House event included working sessions over four hours focused on citizen services, cloud computing, analytics, cybersecurity, big data, purchasing and contract reform, talent recruitment and retraining, government and private sector partnerships, H1-B Visas and future trends, according to a White House official.
Other prominent administration participants included Vice President Mike Pence, National Security Advisor Gen. H.R. McMaster, Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and three cabinet secretaries: Steven Mnuchin of Treasury, John Kelly of Homeland Security and Wilbur Ross of Commerce.
Other participating Silicon Valley chief executives included Eric Schmidt of Alphabet (parent company of Google), Brian Krzanich of Intel, Steven Mollenkopf of Qualcomm, Shantanu Narayen of Adobe and Ginni Rometty of IBM.
Several of those attending on Monday also were at a similar meeting Trump convened last December before his presidential inauguration.
Notably absent from this second meeting was Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, who recently quit as an outside economic advisor to the president in protest of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change.
…
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to Chevron Corp. by preventing Ecuadorean villagers and their American lawyer from trying to collect on an $8.65 billion pollution judgment issued against the oil company by a court in Ecuador.
The justices turned away an appeal by New York-based lawyer Steven Donziger, who has spent more than to two decades trying to hold Chevron responsible for pollution in the Ecuadorean rain forest, of lower court rulings blocking enforcement in the United States of the 2011 judgment.
While not disputing that pollution occurred, San Ramon, California-based Chevron has said it is not liable and that Donziger and his associates orchestrated the writing of a key environmental report and bribed the presiding judge in Ecuador.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan barred enforcement of the judgment in 2014, citing the corruption used to obtain it. The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year upheld Kaplan’s decision, citing “a parade of corrupt actions” by Donziger and his associates, including coercion and fraud, culminating in the bribe offer.
The 2nd Circuit found that Chevron’s $8.646 billion judgment debt was “clearly traceable” to corrupt conduct by the legal team representing the villagers from the area affected by the pollution.
The lengthy legal battle with Chevron has been waged in several countries and was documented in “Crude,” a 2009 documentary film. The plaintiffs have said they plan to continue efforts to enforce the judgment in other countries, regardless of the outcome in the United States.
The saga was drawn extensive media attention over the years, with a succession of reporters given tours by both sides of the affected sites on the edge of the Amazonian jungle near the town of Lago Agrio. The plaintiffs also touted the backing of several celebrities including actors Mia Farrow and Danny Glover.
Donziger and representatives of residents of the Lago Agrio region have sought to force Chevron to pay for water and soil contamination caused from 1964 to 1992 by Texaco, which Chevron acquired in 2001. Chevron has said a 1998 agreement between Texaco and Ecuador absolved it of further liability.
Donziger’s crusade began to unravel when Chevron noticed a deleted scene in the “Crude” documentary, released in 2009, showing Donziger working with supposedly neutral experts in preparing a report for the Ecuadorean court.
Chevron was then able to get access to out-takes and other material related to the documentary via court order. Chevron cited this evidence when it filed its lawsuit in 2011 seeking to block enforcement of the judgment, saying Donziger’s actions violated U.S. anti-racketeering law.
Donziger has also tried to enforce the judgment in Canada, Brazil and other countries where Chevron operates.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday tightened rules on where injury lawsuits may be filed, handing a victory to corporations by undercutting the ability of plaintiffs to bring claims in friendly courts in a case involving litigation over the Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. blood-thinning medication Plavix.
The justices, in an 8-1 ruling, threw out a lower court decision allowing hundreds of out-of-state patients who took Plavix to sue the company in California. State courts cannot hear claims against companies that are not based in the state when the alleged injuries did not occur there, the justices ruled.
The court last month reached a similar conclusion in a separate case involving out-of-state injury claims against Texas-based BNSF Railway Co.
…
Google says it is stepping up its efforts to identify and remove videos related to terrorism and violent extremist content, particularly on its YouTube platform.
“While we and others have worked for years to identify and remove content that violates our policies,” Google said, “the uncomfortable truth is that we, as an industry, must acknowledge that more needs to be done. Now.”
First, the company says it’s increasing its use of technology to identify videos that contain extremist messages. It added that it has used “video analysis models” to find and assess more than 50 percent of the terrorism-related content that has been removed in the past six months.
“We will now devote more engineering resources to apply our most advanced machine learning research to train new ‘content classifiers’ to help us more quickly identify and remove extremist and terrorism-related content,” the company said.
The company acknowledges that technology can’t fully solve the problem, so it is also adding 50 expert NGO’s to its YouTube Trusted Flagger program. Flaggers, the company said, can better identify the difference between violent propaganda and news and that they are more than 90 percent accurate. Google says it already works with 63 organizations as part of the program.
Google said it will also be taking a “tougher stance on videos that do not clearly violate our policies.” It said videos that “contain inflammatory religious or supremacists content” will appear with a warning. People will not be able to make money off them, or to comment on or endorse them.
“That means these videos will have less engagement and be harder to find,” Google wrote. “We think this strikes the right balance between free expression and access to information without promoting extremely offensive viewpoints.”
In a fourth step, Google said it will “expand its role in counter-radicalization efforts” through what it calls the “Redirect Method.”
“This promising approach harnesses the power of targeted online advertising to reach potential Isis recruits and redirects them towards anti-terrorist videos that can change their minds about joining,” Google wrote, in reference to Islamic State. “In previous deployments of this system, potential recruits have clicked through on the ads at an unusually high rate, and watched over half a million minutes of video content that debunks terrorist recruiting messages.”
The steps were first published in an opinion piece Sunday on the Financial Times website and can now be found on a Google blog.
Google’s steps follow a recent Facebook announcement that the social media giant is using artificial intelligence to combat terrorist content.
Earlier this year, the non-profit Southern Poverty Law Center issued a report critical of organizations like Google and Facebook. The anti-hate group said the companies “have done little to counter the use of their platforms to spread hateful, false “information,” from conspiracy theories accusing various minority groups of plotting against America to websites promoting Holocaust denial and false “facts” about Islam, LGBT people, women, Mexicans and others.”
…
Climate change, trade and terrorism were highlighted Monday at a Beijing meeting of foreign affairs officials from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, known collectively as the BRICS nations.
The five nations are seeking to further align their views on key issues at a time when President Donald Trump is withdrawing the U.S. from multilateral arrangements such as the Paris climate accords and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China in the coming year would look to “expand with more broad and wide-ranging cooperation in areas such as trade and commerce and investment.”
Together the BRICS countries account for roughly 40 percent of the world population and 20 percent of the global economy. All five countries are members of the G20, although their economic prospects have declined somewhat amid crises in Brazil and South Africa and the effect of sanctions lodged against Russia by the West.
South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane pointed to climate change as a major concern.
“There is one climate and for future generations we must employ every effort at our disposal to reverse the effects of climate change,” she said.
Nkoana-Mashabane also pointed to the need to form joint efforts to fight terrorism, sentiments reflected by Vijay Kumar Singh, an Indian External Affairs official.
“It is important to enhance BRICS security in counterterrorism matters,” Singh said.
Leaders of the five nations are due to meet for a summit in the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen in September.
…
When Wal-Mart Stores Inc. bought online retailer Jet.com for $3 billion last year, it marked a crucial moment — the world’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer, after years of ceding e-commerce leadership to arch rival Amazon, intended to compete.
On Friday, Amazon.com Inc. countered. With its $14 billion purchase of grocery chain Whole Foods Market Inc., the largest e-commerce company announced its intention to take on Wal-Mart in the brick-and-mortar world.
The two deals make it clear that the lines that divided traditional retail from e-commerce are disappearing and sector dominance will no longer be bound by e-commerce or brick-and-mortar, but by who is better at both.
Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods also brings disruption to the $700 billion U.S. grocery sector, a traditional area of retailing that stands on the precipice of a ferocious price war.
German discounters Aldi and Lidl are battling Wal-Mart, which controls 22 percent of the U.S. grocery market, with each vowing to undercut whatever price the others offer.
The stakes are highest for Wal-Mart. Amazon’s move aims at the heart of the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retail giant’s business — groceries, which account for 56 percent of Wal-Mart’s $486 billion in revenue for the year ending Jan. 31. With the deal, Whole Foods’ more than 460 stores become a test bed with which Amazon can learn how to compete with Wal-Mart’s 4,700 stores with a large grocery offering that are also within 10 miles (16 km) of 90 percent of the U.S. population.
Amazon is expected to lower Whole Foods’ notoriously high prices, enabling it to pursue Wal-Mart’s customers. The push comes as Wal-Mart is headed in the opposite direction — going
after Amazon’s higher-income shoppers with a recent string of acquisitions of online brands such as Moosejaw and Modcloth and on Friday, menswear e-tailer Bonobos.
Wal-Mart may be ready. In preparation for the grocery price war, Wal-Mart in recent months has cut grocery prices, improved fresh food and meat offerings, modernized shelving and lighting
in its grocery aisles, and expanded its online grocery pickup service.
Marc Lore, the Jet.com founder who now runs Wal-Mart’s e-commerce business after selling a startup to Amazon, told Reuters in an interview that Amazon’s move does not change Wal-Mart’s game plan. “We’re playing offense,” he said.
Wal-Mart is offering curbside pickup of online grocery purchases at 700 locations, with 300 more planned by year end.
It also is testing same-day fresh and frozen home delivery from 10 of its stores. “We see an opportunity to do a lot more of that,” Lore said.
Roger Davidson, who oversaw Wal-Mart’s global food procurement and now is president of Oakton Advisory Group, said the deal will reduce Wal-Mart’s brick-and-mortar advantage.
“I think this acquisition is a concern,” he said.
Some industry observers say Amazon will find it difficult to use Whole Foods to pull away Wal-Mart shoppers because the two stores appeal to different customers. But Michelle Grant, head of retailing at market research firm Euromonitor, said Amazon could use an obscure part of the Whole Foods portfolio — Whole Foods 365 — to lure Wal-Mart shoppers.
Whole Foods 365 offers private-label goods and lower prices than typical Whole Foods stores, and is targeted at younger, value-conscious shoppers. Amazon could provide the financial
capital and tactical ability to build that into something big.
“That [Whole Foods 365] may become a big problem for Wal-Mart,” Grant said.
Amazon, which reported $12.5 billion in cash and equivalents and a free cash flow of $10.2 billion in the year ended March 31, has plenty to spend. Wal-Mart reported $6.9 billion in cash
and equivalents and $20.9 billion in free cash flow at its year ended Jan. 31.
Brittain Ladd, a former senior manager at Amazon who worked on its brick-and-mortar strategy, said Amazon will use Whole Foods to test concepts for the grocery store of the future.
Ladd, who left Amazon in March, said Amazon will seek to eliminate checkout lines by using technology that automatically scans goods as customers add them to their shopping carts. It
will select merchandise based on Amazon’s vaunted customer data, and potentially expects the use of technology to change prices during the course of a day.
Amazon declined comment on competition with Walmart but spokesman Drew Herdener said in a statement the company has no plans to cut jobs or use technology in development at its
Seattle Amazon Go store to automate jobs of cashiers.
Ladd, who helped with AmazonFresh’s global expansion and now is a supply chain consultant, said an Amazon-owned Whole Foods also likely will offer in-car pickup of online purchases, and
home delivery from Whole Foods stores, add pharmacies and showcase Amazon devices inside the stores.
“Amazon will reduce prices and change the assortment of products carried in Whole Foods stores to attract a larger customer base,” said Ladd. “Kroger and Wal-Mart will be impacted as their customers will defect to Amazon.”
…
The soaring cathedrals of Europe seem to defy gravity. But 3-D architects are taking a page from the ancient masters to form their new creations. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…
The soaring cathedrals of Europe seem to defy gravity. But 3D architects are taking a page from the ancient masters to form their new creations. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…
A key part of House Republicans’ plan to overhaul the way corporations pay taxes is on life support, leaving lawmakers scrambling to save one of President Donald Trump’s biggest priorities and increasing the chances the GOP will simply pass a tax cut instead of overhauling the tax code.
A proposed tax on imports is central to the GOP plan to lower the overall corporate tax rate. It would generate about $1 trillion over the next decade to finance the lower rates without adding to the deficit. It would also provide strong incentives for U.S.-based companies to keep their operations in the United States and perhaps persuade companies to move overseas operations to the U.S.
But the tax faces strong opposition from retailers, automakers and the oil industry, and a growing number of congressional Republicans have come out against it. They worry that it will increase the cost of imports, raising consumer prices.
Import tax
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says there probably aren’t enough votes to pass the import tax in the Senate — not a single Republican senator has publicly endorsed it. And a powerful group of House conservatives says it’s time to dump the idea.
“The sooner we acknowledge that and get on with a plan that actually works and actually can build consensus, the better off we will be,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus.
Even one of the biggest backers of the new tax says he is open to other ideas.
Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, has pushed the tax as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. He still says it’s the best way to promote economic growth and domestic jobs, but he has softened his stance on alternatives.
“I’m still confident that we’re going to stay at the table until we solve that problem, which is how do we stop U.S. jobs from continuing to leave the United States,” Brady said. “We’re going to remain open to the best ideas on how we do that.”
On Tuesday, Brady proposed gradually phasing in the tax over five years to give corporations time to adjust.
It wasn’t received well by opponents.
“Forcing consumers to pay more so that some profitable companies can operate tax-free is no better of an idea in five years than it is today,” said Brian Dodge of the Retail Industry Leaders Association.
What next?
But if the import tax is dead, then what?
“I would never declare anything dead until there was a fully formed alternative,” said Rohit Kumar, a former tax counsel to McConnell who now heads PwC’s Washington tax office. “I think that’s one of the big challenges that Republicans are struggling with right now.”
Thirty-one years after the last tax overhaul, there is widespread agreement that the current system is too complicated and picks winners and losers, compelling companies to make decisions based on tax implications instead of sound business reasons.
The goal — for now — is to simplify the tax code and make it more efficient in a way that does not add to the federal government’s mounting debt. That means some would pay more and some would pay less, a heavy political lift among politicians who have deep political and practical disagreements.
Lawmakers also are trying to overhaul taxes on individuals, which raises another set of big challenges.
“It’s easier to get a coalition to cut taxes,” said Mark Mazur, a former Treasury official under President Barack Obama. “And if the conversation is, `how long do they last and how deep are the tax cuts,’ each party knows how to do that conversation. It’s not like you’re asking for a huge lift.”
The new import tax, which is called a border adjustment tax, would radically change the way corporations are taxed. Under current law, corporations pay a top tax rate of 35 percent on their profits. But the tax code is filled with so many exemptions, deductions and credits that most corporations pay a much lower rate.
Proposal
Under the proposed system, American companies that produce and sell their products in the U.S. would pay a new 20 percent tax on the profits from these sales. However, if a company exports a product, the profits from that sale would not be taxed by the U.S.
Foreign companies that import goods to the U.S. would also have to pay the tax, and they would not be able to deduct the cost of the imported good as a business expense.
Republicans in Congress and at the White House have been meeting behind closed doors for weeks to come up with viable alternatives. Democrats have been largely excluded from the talks, leaving Republicans with little room for error.
“I still think that Republicans, out of pure political necessity, if nothing else, are likely to find a way to get some sort of tax bill to the president’s desk for his signature,” Kumar said.
Whether it’s genuine tax reform or simply a tax cut “is still very much in question right now,” he added.
…
The UN Children’s Fund warns three-quarters of a million children in Eastern Ukraine are at risk of water-borne diseases as fighting threatens to cut off their safe water supply.
The United Nations estimates around 10,000 people have been killed and more than 23,500 injured since fighting in Eastern Ukraine erupted between the government and Russian-backed separatists more than three years ago.
The U.N. children’s fund warns an upsurge in fighting in the rebel-held territory is putting more lives at risk. The agency reports the recent escalation of hostilities has damaged vital water infrastructure, leaving 400,000 people, including more than 100,000 children without drinking water for four days this week.
Water pipes repaired
Damage to these water pipes has been repaired. But, UNICEF says other infrastructure that provides water for three million people in eastern Ukraine is in the line of fire. UNICEF spokesman, Christophe Boulierac warns many families, including some 750,000 children will be cut off from safe drinking water if these structures are hit.
“Why we are worried is because the children who are cut off from clean drinking water can quickly contract water-borne disease, such as diarrhea,” said Bouliererec. “Girls and boys having to fetch water from alternative sources or who are forced to leave their homes due to disruptions to safe water supplies face dangers from ongoing fighting and other forms of abuses.”
Other problems
UNICEF reports nearly four million people in Eastern Ukraine need humanitarian assistance. The agency says children are among those suffering the most from more than three years of conflict.
The aid agency says tens of thousands of children face dangers from landmines and unexploded ordnance. It says many children show signs of severe psychological distress.
U.S. farm groups criticized President Donald Trump’s decision to retreat from his predecessor’s opening toward Cuba, saying it could derail huge increases in farm exports that totaled $221 million last year.
A trade delegation from Minnesota, one of the largest U.S. agriculture states, vowed to carry on with its planned visit to Cuba next week.
“We’re going to continue to beat the drum and let them (the Trump administration) know that trade is good for agriculture,” said Kevin Paap, a farmer in the delegation.
Trump signed a presidential directive Friday rolling back parts of former President Barack Obama’s opening to the Communist-ruled country after a 2014 diplomatic breakthrough between the two former Cold War foes.
Farm groups saw the move as a step backward in what had been an improving trade relationship between the two countries, which are 90 miles (145 kms) apart, even though agriculture is not directly targeted.
U.S. law exempts food from a decades-old embargo on U.S. trade with Cuba, but cumbersome rules on how transactions were executed have made deals difficult and costly.
Since Obama’s detente, substantial headway has been made with shipments of U.S. corn and soybeans to Cuba soaring 420 percent in 2016 from a year earlier to 268,360 tons, U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows.
Through the first four months of 2017, total shipments of U.S. grain and soy were 142,860 ton, up from 49,090 tons during the same period of 2016.
While the quantities are dwarfed by total U.S. exports — nearly 56 million ton of corn alone last year — the added volumes were welcome as farmers face a fourth year of languishing grain prices and crimped incomes.
“At a time when the farm economy is struggling, we ask our leaders in Washington not to close doors on market opportunities for American agriculture,” Wesley Spurlock, president of the National Corn Growers Association, said in a statement.
The group sees an opportunity for $125 million more a year in trade to Cuba.
Trump’s move could cut off near-term sales and stymie economic development that would drive longer-term demand growth, said Tom Sleight, president of the U.S. Grains Council, a grain trade development organization, in a statement.
“Neither of those outcomes is favorable for the U.S. ag sector or the Cuban people,” he added.
Paap said the United States should be doing more to encourage exports.
“It’s frustrating because we’ve made some advances and built those relationships,” he said.
…
The key to success for ride-hailing providers like Uber is keeping drivers happy so they run their app, ensuring that enough cars respond to passenger demand.
Estonia upstart Taxify is hoping to win over drivers and take on Uber Technologies Inc., the industry leader, by offering a larger share of the profit.
Upstarts across the world, such as Lyft Inc. and Ola, are trying to catch Uber in the on-demand car-ride market by securing brand loyalty.
But Uber has gathered critical mass and reached a valuation of more than $60 billion in eight years, despite a lack of profits. It has kept rivals at bay, partly by offering incentives to drivers to stay online.
Taxify hopes to lure drivers
Taxify, a minnow compared with Uber, cannot afford these perks but believes that by taking a smaller share of fares, 15-20 percent compared with Uber’s 20-25 percent, it can steal market share from its San Francisco-based rival.
It also hopes that allowing drivers to take cash as well as credit card fares will also help it attract more passengers.
“Taxify’s biggest advantage is the focus on good service by treating the drivers and riders better than other platforms. This means having higher pay for drivers, thanks to lower fees,” Chief Executive Markus Villig told Reuters at Taxify’s headquarters in Estonia.
An Uber spokeswoman declined to comment but the company has said it had fare revenue of around $20 billion last year. Villig said Taxify generated fares worth “tens of millions of euros” each month. Taxify runs in just 25 cities in Europe and Africa, while Uber operates in nearly 600 cities worldwide.
Its basic business model is identical — both connect passengers with self-employed drivers. Many incumbent cab companies in Europe have developed apps to operate in a similar manner but most have focused on their domestic markets.
Markets not Uber dominated
But Taxify is unusual in launching in about 18 countries, mainly smaller markets in Eastern Europe and Africa, where Uber is absent or not yet dominant.
Uber usually takes market share by giving drivers money to sign on to its app, paying them even if they are not driving passengers. Then, as it becomes more popular with passengers, it withdraws the inducements. Analysts say Uber aims to build a customer franchise and stable of drivers to dominate the market.
“The way I see it, Taxify is cheaper than Uber,” said Tumelo Malatjie, 33, a former truck driver for a logistics firm turned full-time Taxify driver in Johannesburg. “Taxify takes 15 percent and Uber about 25 percent or 30 percent,” said Malatjie, who nonetheless is on a waiting list to become an Uber driver.
Taxify has avoided expensive head-to-head battles with its much larger rival but its model will soon be tested as Villig plans to launch in London, Uber’s biggest European market in the coming months.
“We are coming in as a second wave,” Villig said.
Small but growing
Founded 3½ years ago, Taxify has 140 staff worldwide, a third of whom are based in Estonia. It says it has 2.5 million active passengers in 18 countries. Uber says it has more than 12,000 people across the world and millions of passengers in 70 countries.
In Africa, Villig said Taxify has hired away 20 former Uber executives, helping its expansion in cities like Lagos, Cairo and Johannesburg.
The start-up has raised 2 million euros in outside financing from local venture capitalists. Like Uber, it is losing money, although it was “close to profitability for the past six months,” Villig said.
Uber reported in late May that its net loss, excluding employee stock options and other items, narrowed in the first quarter to $708 million, from $991 million in the fourth quarter.
Same challenges
Taxify and Uber face many of the same regulatory and commercial challenges.
Uber was dealt a major setback to its European ambitions in May when the lead advocate for Europe’s highest court said it should be regulated like a transport company rather than an online electronic intermediary.
Taxify could face the same legal treatment, which would make it more susceptible to new regulations being introduced by a growing number of European cities.
Similarly, bans on ride-sharing in cities such as Brno in the Czech Republic, apply to Taxify as much as Uber.
Uber has faced complaints from its drivers in London, France and the United States who were unhappy about compensation.
But Taxify has also had protests from drivers in Estonia unhappy at how the company had slashed fare rates. Villig declined to comment.
While analysts do not expect Uber to be dethroned by Taxify anytime soon, the Estonian company’s lower commission model may put pressure on Uber’s margins in countries where it is seeking to cut fares or increase its share of fares.
…
It’s a challenge many Muslims in America are facing this year. Ramadan falls in the summer, and the fast can last between 16 and 20 hours day. Those long hours drove Dr. Imran Posner, a psychiatrist in Philadelphia, to create a food supplement that helps curb hunger during Ramadan. Anne Budianto reports from Philadelphia.
…
Algae blooms are a part of California summers, but something in the water is different this year, and it’s making the local wildlife sick. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…
Apple has hired two longtime Sony Pictures Television executives to expand the iPhone maker’s push into original television programming, plunging deeper into a field crowded by Hollywood studios and online streaming services.
Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, responsible for hit shows such as “Breaking Bad,” “Better Call Saul” and “The Crown,” will join Apple in newly created positions to oversee all aspects of video programming, the technology company said Friday.
“Jamie and Zack are two of the most talented TV executives in the world and have been instrumental in making this the golden age of television,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of internet software and services.
“There is much more to come,” Cue said of Apple’s video effort.
No word on strategy
The new hires demonstrate a serious commitment by another deep-pocketed technology company to produce quality television shows. Erlicht and Van Amburg have served as senior Sony television executives since 2005.
But Apple did not elaborate on its strategy, leaving investors guessing how many shows it plans to distribute, how much it will spend and where the programming will be available.
The company is playing in an increasingly competitive field.
Amazon.com and Netflix have invested billions of dollars in award-winning comedies and dramas featuring A-list Hollywood stars. And social media company Facebook has signed deals with millennial-focused news and entertainment creators, including Vox and BuzzFeed, to make shows for its upcoming video service.
Apple began its move last week with reality program “Planet of the Apps,” an unscripted show about developers competing for venture capital funding. The series is available only to subscribers to Apple Music, a $10-a-month streaming service.
Apple has one huge advantage compared with other companies: 1 billion iPhones, iPads and other devices that run Apple’s mobile operating system and offer a broad distribution platform.
The company has widely promoted “Planet of the Apps” across iTunes, the App Store, Apple’s website and elsewhere.
Pressure on traditional outlets
As tech companies push further into the content business, pressure mounts on traditional media outlets that do not have the same amount of data on viewers or the ability for content to be a loss leader, said Rich Greenfield, an analyst with BTIG.
“These companies do not need to make money off video because they can make money other ways,” Greenfield said. “And they are going to have tons of data on their viewers.”
It is more cost-effective for Apple to pay for original content and secure licensing deals on its own than to buy a content company, said Moody’s analyst Gerald Granovsky.
“From a credit perspective, we’d much rather see Apple overpay to deliver original content than pay $50 billion to buy Netflix and basically compete for the same content,” he said. “They’ll definitely get a better bang for their buck by focusing on their Apple TV product.”
No Disney deal
Greenfield said news of Apple’s hires should put to rest rumors that Apple might acquire another content company, Walt Disney.
“It’s pretty clear now that Apple isn’t buying Disney,” he said.
Disney shares were down 0.5 percent at $105.40 on Friday afternoon. Apple shares were down 0.9 percent at $143.01.
For Sony, the departures come as the Japanese conglomerate revamps its movie and television studio under new Chief Executive Tony Vinciquerra. In a memo to staff, Vinciquerra suggested Apple could be a buyer of Sony programming.
“While we are sad to see them go, we are excited by the opportunity to work with them as partners in the future,” he said.
…
Colombia on Friday reached a deal with public school teachers to end a 37-day strike that has kept millions of children out of classes, amid criticism the government has failed to keep its promise to improve public education after a peace deal with Marxist rebels.
Union members participating in the nationwide walkout held near-daily marches, often blocking busy roads in the capital Bogota to demand more funding for school maintenance, supplies, student meals and salaries.
President Juan Manuel Santos says he is focused on combating inequality and improving education now that a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), an end of more than 52 years of war, is under way.
But educators said improvements are nowhere to be seen and their salaries, some as low as 1.8 million pesos per month (about $610), are not adequate compensation for work that requires extensive and expensive higher education.
“The government’s priority was always to reach an agreement that recognizes the work of teachers and the indispensable role of education in the development of the country and, at the same time, be responsible with public finances,” Education Minister Yaneth Ghia told reporters.
The deal, among other things, will improve salaries through progressive bonus payments and allow bigger union involvement in how money is spent on education, she said.
The powerful Colombian Federation of Education Workers (Fecode) union, which represents more than 350,000 teachers, agreed to the deal after meeting with Finance Minister Mauricio Cardenas.
“The president said the money that went to the war would go to education but now there’s no FARC, no guns and we don’t see the funds,” said high school teacher Jose Escobar, 36, earlier on Friday during a protest in Bogota’s main square.
Places at his school, Colegio German Arciniegas in Bogota’s poor Bosa neighborhood, are in such high demand that it has been impossible to implement the government’s goal of full-day classes, Escobar said. Instead, 4,800 students in grades nine through 11 attend half-day, or six hours.
Friday’s deal will push toward the aim of full-day study.
Santos has weathered a wave of strikes in recent weeks, reaching agreements to halt protests in the port city Buenaventura and a strike by public workers.
“If the government truly is working for peace, they need to start here,” said Adriana Tunjo, a fifth-grade teacher in southern Bogota, who like other protesters decried problems which included electricity outages and sporadic provision of meals.
…
McDonald’s Corp ended its 41-year-old sponsorship of the Olympic Games three years early, the International Olympic Committee said Friday, reflecting the U.S. fast-food giant’s focus on its core business as well as rising Olympics sponsorship costs and declining TV ratings.
McDonald’s deal would have run through the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, and bowing out will likely to save it hundreds of million of dollars if it had continued into the next four-year Olympics cycle and beyond.
McDonald’s has been trying to hold down costs as it invests in improving food quality, restaurant service and online ordering to woo back U.S. diners. Intense competition has gnawed away at sales.
“We are reconsidering all aspects of our business and have made this decision in cooperation with the IOC to focus on different priorities,” said McDonald’s Global Chief Marketing Officer Silvia Lagnado.
Sponsor since 1976
The company, first involved with the games in 1968 and a sponsor since 1976, was the Olympics’ food retail sponsor. Despite pulling out with immediate effect, McDonald’s will continue at next year’s Pyeongchang winter Olympics as a domestic sponsor.
The company’s move may also reflect a rising view among consumer brands that exclusive Olympics sponsorship deals do not offer the marketing impact they once did. Some companies find it is much cheaper to work directly with athletes or specific countries than the IOC.
Moreover, in a trend that began after the Beijing games in 2008, shrinking television audiences for the games could be diminishing the value of sponsors’ ads. With the Rio de Janeiro games in 2016, many viewers turned to social media alternatives like Twitter and Facebook.
In the United States, Comcast’s NBCUniversal said it had attracted 8.6 percent fewer eyeballs for Rio than it did for London in 2012.
$1 billion every four years
The fast food chain has been part of the IOC’s top sponsors program that contributes more than $1 billion in each four-year cycle for the games.
While terms of Olympic sponsorship are not disclosed, a source who negotiated previous IOC sponsorship deals said that top global sponsors like McDonald’s spend about $25 million a year or about $100 million for a four-year period that includes a summer and winter games.
Reuters previously reported that the IOC had wanted to roughly double fees to $200 million per four-year period starting in 2021.
While it is unusual for an Olympic sponsor to leave early, sponsors change regularly within the IOC’s top program. The most recent addition was China’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which signed a deal in January for a partnership through 2028.
The next three Olympics take place in Asia, and this could turn off U.S. sponsors trying to reach a U.S. audience. The U.S. Olympic Committee also has lost recent sponsors such as AT&T and Citigroup ahead of the 2018 winter games in South Korea.
The IOC said it was not planning a direct replacement for McDonald’s, but it is expected to announce a new global deal with Intel next week, according a source familiar with the matter.
Intel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
…
The University of Manitoba has terminated its project to study climate change in the Hudson Bay area because of hazardous ice conditions caused by a change in the climate.
The canceled part of the $17 million, four-year study involved the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen, which was scheduled to sail through the area making scientific measurements and observations.
But the southward flow of Arctic sea ice, caused by climate change, led to unusually severe ice conditions along the northern coast of Newfoundland, where the Amundsen is involved in marine safety operations. That meant the ship could not depart for Hudson Bay, a huge ocean basin in northeastern Canada, in time to meet the research objectives.
Forty scientists from five Canadian universities planned to study the impact of climate change on Arctic marine and coastal ecosystems.
However, the reminder of the study will continue, and scientists say results so far indicate that climate change already affects environments and communities, not only in the north but also in the south of Canada.
…
President Donald Trump’s Washington hotel saw almost $20 million in revenue during its first few months of operation, a period that coincided with his election and inauguration as the 45th president. His Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, which he’s visited seven times as president, pulled in millions of dollars more than it had previously.
The new details were included in a financial disclosure that Trump voluntarily submitted Friday to the Office of Government Ethics, the first snapshot of the Trump Organization’s finances since its longtime leader became president.
Liabilities listed
The disclosure forms also listed his personal liabilities of at least $315.6 million to German, U.S. and other lenders as of mid-2017, according to a federal financial disclosure form released late Friday by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.
Trump reported income of at least $594 million for 2016 and early 2017 and assets worth at least $1.4 billion.
The 98-page disclosure document posted on the ethics office’s website showed liabilities for Trump of at least $130 million to Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, a unit of German-based Deutsche Bank AG.
For example, Trump disclosed a liability to Deutsche exceeding $50 million for the Old Post Office, a landmark historic property in downtown Washington that he recently redeveloped into a hotel near the White House.
Trump reported liabilities of at least $110 million to Ladder Capital, a commercial real estate lender with offices in New York, Los Angeles and Boca Raton, Florida.
The largest component of Trump’s income was $115.9 million listed as golf-resort related revenues from Trump National Doral in Miami. His assets probably exceeded $1.4 billion because the disclosure form provided ranges of values.
Disclosures’ importance
When he took office in January, Trump turned over the reins of his global real estate, property management and marketing empire to his two adult sons and a senior executive. But Trump did not divest, instead placing his enormous portfolio of financial assets in a trust controlled by the executive and Donald Trump Jr. He can take back control of the trust at any time, and he’s free to withdraw cash from it as he pleases.
Trump’s financial disclosures have added importance because he isn’t following the long tradition of presidential candidates and office-holders making public their tax returns. Those returns provide more precise financial information than the disclosure forms that have broad ranges for income, assets and debts.
The latest report shows Trump resigned from more than 500 positions, stepping down from many on the day before his inauguration. His liabilities were about the same as in the previous report.
Income listed
Some of Trump’s ventures appear to be making more money than they had a year earlier.
His book The Art of the Deal is having a comeback of its own. Royalties from the 1987 autobiography ranged between $100,000 and $1 million, according to the new report. The 2016 report listed royalties as being between $50,000 and $100,000, and the 2015 report put them at $15,000 to $50,000.
Trump’s management fees from Indonesian companies tied to two planned resorts there more than doubled. The latest disclosure puts the fees at $380,000, up from $167,000 he reported in 2016. Trump is partnering with a billionaire Indonesian, Hary Tanoesoedibjo, on the two ventures. One is planned for the tourist island of Bali, the other near Jakarta.
Mar-a-Lago, where Trump played host to several foreign dignitaries during his seven weekends there this winter, has improved its finances. Trump listed the resort’s income as about $37 million, up from about $30 million it had taken in before his 2016 financial report.
His golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on the other hand, produced almost $20 million in revenue, about what it had during the previous reporting period. Trump recently began decamping to that property some weekends.
The documentation of revenue from each of those properties doesn’t account for expenses, meaning those figures are not pure profit.
The Trump International Hotel, housed in the Old Post Office building, has seen a burst of activity since opening its doors last fall. In addition to serving as a hub during inauguration festivities, it has hosted numerous events for foreign diplomatic and business interests.
The hotel is cited in three separate lawsuits arguing that Trump is violating the Constitution’s “emoluments” clause, a ban on foreign gifts and payments. Trump and the Justice Department have called those claims baseless.
Reuters contributed to this report.
…